


if you'll have me

by onebatch2batch



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, I just want them to be happy, Mentions of Dinah Madani, THAT'S ALL I WANT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 14:18:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14310534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onebatch2batch/pseuds/onebatch2batch
Summary: The video leaks online, because of course it does. Karen goes to find Frank in the aftermath.





	if you'll have me

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to explore the possibilities of what would happen if David’s live-feed from the bunker somehow got to the public eye. Sooo, here we are!

The video leaks online because of course it does.    
  
She’s at work when it hits. Ellison walks into her office, all stiff angles and furtive glances, and shuts the door. Karen raises a brow. “What?”    
  
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he walks over to her computer and pulls up a new browser tab. Frank Castle is tied to a chair and being beaten to a pulp on her screen. Karen stares. And stares. She thinks maybe if she closes her eyes it won't be real. Ellison’s hand touches her shoulder hesitantly. “Karen. I just—didn’t want you to see it...somewhere else.”    
  
She knows Ellison is looking out for her. He’s showing this to her in a safe space, before someone else can. She’s never explicitly told Ellison about her connection with Frank, but he’s not stupid. Karen pulls away, barely able to meet his eyes. “Thanks,” she says, voice hollow.    
  
He stays a moment longer, then steps back. “Take the day off.”    
  
She nods and finishes the video, hardly registers the sound of her office door as it closes behind Ellison. On screen, Frank stands towering over the other man as he beats him bloody. He looks to someone out of frame. There’s so much blood. Karen covers her mouth, queasy, and closes her eyes. Frank’s guttural yell echoes in her ears as he pummels the man on the floor.    
  
She has to see him.    
  
—   
  
Really, it doesn’t take long to find Frank. She makes a few phone calls, texts Madani, who gives her David Lieberman’s number - and he doesn’t seem surprised to hear her voice.    
  
“Yeah,” David says with a shaky laugh, “Yeah, Karen, hi. I was wondering when you’d call.”    
  
“Where is he?” She asks, foregoing her manners. She needs to know - needs to see Frank with her own eyes. She’ll get to know David later—she has about a million questions for him, too.    
  
He exhales slow, debating. “Um...”   
  
“David, please.” She’s begging and she doesn’t care. His silence almost overwhelms her and then:    
  
“Okay.”    
  
—   
  
Frank (now Pete, David informs her) is living in a shithole apartment in the boroughs. Karen keeps her arm in her purse, hand wrapped firmly around her gun, as she walks down the street to the building. It’s outside the city in the roughest neighborhood she’s ever seen. There are stray dogs in the street and people gather around trash cans, passing something hand-to- hand. Garbage litters the sidewalks, and there’s a strange, sweet smell in the air she can’t identify. Her taxi driver had almost refused to accept this was her stop and had reluctantly told her the total, looking at her warily in the rearview.    
  
When she reaches the front door, he’s already opening it.    
  
“Karen,” Frank’s tone is angry and chiding - but he’s alive and she throws her arms around him right there in the doorway. His arms come around her tightly, his nose buried in the crook of her neck. They stand for a long time as she cries silently into his jacket. “Karen,” he says, softer this time, into the shell of her ear, “Shh, shh. I’m okay. Okay?”    
  
“Okay.” She sniffles, pulling away and rubbing her hand across her eyes.    
  
“Come on,” he says, moving aside. “I don’t like you bein’ out here.”    
  
Karen steps inside, scanning the interior. Her eyes narrow. He may not like her standing outside his crummy building, but she hates that he lives here. He deserves so much more. Her voice wavers slightly when she speaks. “Get used to it or move.”    
  
Surprise, then amusement flashes across his face. He leads her upstairs to his apartment. It’s small - clearly meant for one person with blank walls and a few books on the floor near an armchair. A darkened doorway leads to the bedroom. The kitchen is small with a single yellow bulb that swings above their heads. The light throws shadows across his thick beard. He looks exhausted. Like he hasn’t sleep in weeks—and even in his lumbering, awkward state, he looks like a dream to her. 

  
He glances at her curiously. “I know how you found me,” he says, ducking into the fridge to grab her a beer, “but why?”    
  
Karen scoffs weakly. She really hasn’t planned what to say; she’s still reveling in him alive and two feet away. “Anything stronger than beer?”   
  
“‘Fraid not.” His expression shifts to cautious worry. “Karen...what happened?”    
  
He doesn’t know. David told him she was coming but didn’t tell him why. Apparently he lives under a rock.  She meets his eyes and all she can think is that it’s going to be hard for him to go grocery shopping without someone recognizing him, and somehow that makes all of this worse. Karen fiddles with the label of the beer bottle anxiously.   
  
“I saw the tape.”    
  
The words hang in the air between them; tension weighs heavy in the room. She realizes he’s clenching and unclenching his fists. His shoulders are a hard, angry line. “How?” His voice is deceptively soft.    
  
She wants to reach out, wrap him in her arms and take away the anger clouding his expression. Karen looks at her fingers, staying put. “It...it leaked online. Somehow.”   
  
He lets out a curse, harsh and angry, “I didn’t—I didn’t want you to see...”    
  
“Frank.” She places a hand on the hard curve of his shoulder. He stiffens, then relaxes under her touch. “Frank, I’m not...ashamed. Or afraid. I’m just—scared for you.”    
  


“You—what?”    
  
Tears wet her lashes. “You don’t deserve any of this. It breaks my heart that—that you never get any rest and now you’re living  _ here _ and—“ Frank always brings out the most intense emotions in her. She looks at him again—the deep v of confusion above his brows, the shaggy hair and untrimmed beard, and realizes he’s just  _ surviving _ . She wonders, standing in his disaster of a home, when the last time he  _ lived _ was. He’s looking at her, lost and a little terrified. Karen chokes back a sob. “...it’s not fair.”    
  
Frank opens and closes his mouth and then furrows his brows. “Why do you care?” He asks, a new tenderness softening the words.    
  
Karen’s muted laugh is raw. “Why do you think?”    
  
He looks stricken, then a little ashamed and maybe a little sad. “Karen, I can’t—“   
  
“I know.” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. He’s not there with her, yet. Maybe he never will be, and that’s okay. She’s known for a while that she feels strongly about him, and even more recently that she loves him. But she also knows there is a chance he doesn’t (can’t) feel that way for her. He lost his wife, his kids, his life, and his identity all at once; she can’t blame him for unreciprocated feelings. She’s jerked out of her thoughts when Frank steps closer; his fingers graze her cheek, trail down her neck and come to rest on her shoulder.    
  
He watches her carefully. He looks tired, so tired, but he’s smiling nervously and he’s so close she can feel the heat of his body through her coat. He reaches up and cups her cheek, bringing her closer. “You didn’t let me finish.” 

  
Karen peers up at him. She wraps her fingers around his wrist tightly. His skin is hot under her fingers, and the anchoring weight of his gaze on hers makes her heartbeat quicken. He exhales slowly, sending shivers across her arms.    
  
“I can’t promise you I’m worth it,” he says slowly. “I got blood on my hands. I got—demons and all this shit but—“ His eyes soften around the edges; his thumb swipes over her cheekbone gently. “—I’m yours, if you’ll have me, yeah?”    
  
Karen’s eyes widen. She doesn’t respond right away, too busy trying to decide if this is all some fever dream conjured out of worry for him. Only in her daydreams—on the rare occasions she lets herself—has Frank looked at her this way, touched her this way. She reaches down and pinches her leg quickly, but not quick enough he doesn’t see.    
  
“You’re awake,” he says. The boyish gleam in his eyes makes her picture a younger, softer Frank. A man with no worries, no scars, and no blood on his hands.    
  
“Yeah,” she says on a laugh. “I just had to check.”    
  
“You gonna knock me out if I kiss you?”   
  
“I might knock you out if you don’t,” she says, then closes the gap and takes the matter into her own hands. She knows, deep down, that kissing their problems—their fears— away, can only last so long. That they can only dance around the question  _ ‘What if?’  _ for so long.    
  
What if Frank gets caught?    
What if someone connects the dots and she becomes an accomplice?    
What if he’s taken away from her?    
  
She shivers at the thought, and feels Frank smooth a hand down her spine.    
  
_ ‘What if,’  _ she thinks, as Frank’s lips chase the sigh from her mouth,  _ “... what if this is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life?” _   
  
What if? 


End file.
